I received a 2nd round of IRB Clarification Requests, which mainly focus on fully clarifying exactly how I will recruit and what the level of involvment of my Autism Across the Lifespan professor, Eileen Crehan (who has also served as kind of an unofficial secondary advisor on this project), is. In order to address both of these issues, since the clarifications had to do more specifically with Eileen using her Crehan Lab records as a form of recruitment, she has agreed to sign on as an official collaborator of this project. Eileen has also brought up potentially collaborating further outside of this project, so I am very glad that I took her course in conjunction with the DREAM project.

While focusing on making these IRB Application adjustments, I also decided to check in on any advancements involving AI and 3D model developement, as suggested by my advisor, and I was very surprised to find that there had been many changes since I had last checked during the summer. I found that there are several potential tools that I could use to aid in developing 3D models/characters for this project. While I suppose I should have been excited about this, due to the time that can be saved, it instead felt like a hard blow. I know that this was directly related to my background being in digital art, so it felt personal in a way. However, it also made me consider how I am using AI to write my individual social stories as a prelude to the airport simulation, to program the individual NPCs, and now I feel as if I will also be expected to use AI to build my 3D models and characters due to efficiency. I feel like I need to take a moment to consider the role of AI in this project more generally speaking. I am also currently wrapping my head around how last week’s work on character design now feels as if it was a collosal waste of time…all of the work put into creating my ticketing/bag drop area scene now seems this way too actually.